He made everting himself, totally handmade, even the pickups. He made only 29 Bigsby Standards like this one. And then steel guitars and not least the Bigsby vibrato system. All made by him alone. He was a genious.
It's the reason why Leo quickly outproduced him. Leo had already had the experience of mass producing amplifiers and lap steel guitars and he put it to good use immediately after coming up with the first prototypes of the Broadcaster which he had made after having studied closely Bigsby's guitars which he would borrow. After deciding what worked and what didn't in Bigsby's guitars Leo finished the Broadcaster design more suited for mass production. Other thing is while Paul had musicians contact him in order to commission a guitar which he then would be making for a very long time as every his guitar was a custom instrument specifically made for that person, Leo would be regularly going to jazz and country gigs in LA at first to service his own amps as a side hustle or just to figure design flaws, and then he would start bringing his Broadcaster prototypes and offer the performing acts to use them. That way he wound up getting way more pre-orders from gigging musicians than Paul and at least in one case a guitarist who had already commissioned Paul to build him a guitar refused to buy the finished instrument because he had bought one of Leo's guitars.
The violin taipiece was suggested by Merle Travis when he sketched out his guitar design for Paul Bigsby, according to an article about Paul written by Merle Travis in Guitar World magazine-I believe iin the first issue in 1980, with Johnny Winter on the cover.
Merci beaucoup for the backstory. I have to say I'm most impressed with the guitar wranglers. Guitars are restless and like to be roam, to see that collection so docile was testament to good training.
Way to go Deke - good job that man! Thanks for keeping this old flame alive, the old Gibbys and Fenders are really cool but these are the dinosaurs from which all others descend. Makes me proud to be a guitar geek!!
Great story, history in your hands there Deke! I have a picture of me holding Bigsby #2 with RC Allen who owned that guitar. He passed away about 5 years ago and not sure what happened to that guitar. We thank you for restoring Bigsby #3.
From Skip in New Orleans: "A pair of Bigsby pickups was given to me at the 1990 New York guitar show by Mr. Gordon Dow. I was told they were removed from a D'Angelico instrument in New York City. One pickup was installed in the sound hole of a Grammer acoustic guitar by Billy Penn at Outlaw Guitars. That guitar was eventually sold to Mr. Dan Courtney at Chelsea Guitars. The other pickup which was non-functioning at the time was given to Mr. Bob Guida for use in a Gibson ES 175. Bob remains forever in my prayers here in my city below sea level. God bless you Mr. Steve and Happy Trails Mr. Deke. As always, Be Well."
Very interesting! I wasn't aware of the history of solid body guitars pre Fender. I'm glad the history of these guitars is being preserved and the information is being passed on.
I'm from Hawai'i, moved to Bixby Ok twelve years ago. The locals pronounce Bixby as Bigsby, so when I saw the title Bigsby Guitar I thought, wOw! a guitar made in Bixby long time ago, but no, it's not. Hahaha. That's a great guitar, looks like a cross between a Strat and a Les Paul. Thanks for this awesome post.
What a superb work/ restoration job by Retrofret! Wow.. And, Deke, thank you for the very interesting history of this beautyfull Bigsby guitar. These guitars must be very rare. At first, years ago, I saw the Grady Martin doubleneck Bigsby on youtube and always wondered what kind of guitar this would be. But now I know :) Think I never can effort one! ;) but I enjoy my '59 Harmony Rocket and '62 Kay Speeddemon. Cheers, Reem Groot
I think we can all agree that Merle Travis was one of the most influential musicians of the previous century. Thanks Paul bigsby for working with Merle and making history. *Merle also designed the 6 in line headstock*
a stunningly successful restoration, and a beautifully clear explanation of it all as well, thank you for preserving a guitar with so much significance!
So This is the End of the Line of Old School Guitars !!!!!!....i got a book or 2 on guitars back in 1990 and it has history of these guitars...So this guy in the video is searching for rare guitars and he comes up with the Electric Holy Grail Guitar... omfg im gonna pass out....
Cool story and a fantastic job on the guitar. They, Fender, reissued these guitars a few years ago as I can remember that their website had Fender, Gretch, and a few versions of these. I looked a while back and couldn't find them. I guess these guitars are once again out of production. Cool guitars though! Thanks for the video and story.
What a great opportunity to study and document the construction of this guitar with that rim piece busted out. The photo of P. Bigsby holding that guitar was taken by Fender's Forrest White. C'mon Dickerson...what about the E7 in bar 12 of that closing piece...you missed it every time around!
Nicer saw one of these Bigsby guitar on a music shop on the wall in Australia in the mid 1990’s. It needed restauration. I ask the owner if he wanted to sell it. He wanted to restaure it for himself.
The LaBaye 2x4 also had a stupidly placed selector switch. In fact, Eastwood's reissue has it moved up to the top of the body per the request of Devo's Bob Mothersbaugh.
Nice story- great job, and wonderful restoration- nice sound Now I wish I hadn't thrown out that double necked guitar, it was broken anyway- just kidding KC
I think those guys are joking around I'm pretty sure that was a repro guitar made by a luthier today. The birdseyes in the maple on the two guitars also dont match up.
Country guitar legend Grady Martin played a Bigsby double neck guitar in the 50's on the Ozark Jubilee Television show hosted by Red Foley. Why would you said there was only one Bigsby double neck when there were clearly at least two built?
Unfortunately the "replica" pickup isn't going to sound like an original. Bigsby used 40 gauge plain enamel wire. No one makes plain enamel 40 wire anymore, plus the old wire is way different than any modern magnet wire. I've documented the heck out of this and had Elektrisola analyzed a good pile of 16+ vintage plain enamel magnet wire off P90's, PAF's, and some Fender pickups as well, covering a range of 40 years time span. We did this in about 2006-7. They did numerous kinds of tests then educated me on what they were and what the results meant compared to modern wire. But the kicker is that since 2007 when we did that, I've obtained a fair pile of vintage 40's-50's, and earlier and later PE wire, so I know what the old wire sounds like in person, extremely well. My theories at the time all proved to be true once I wound with old wire and played it. The other failure will be the pole pieces. In the early 40-50's common hardware fasteners were made of very low carbon. In our time the carbon content is much higher, gives a very different sound. You can't buy those alloy fasteners now unless you have them custom made, and some of those alloys were almost pure iron, which is not possible to have made anymore. There IS alnico currently being made now that sounds like vintage magnets do, so thats not a big issue. There have been some companies I've seen a few years ago making "Bigsby" pickups, but inside all they are is P90's and completely miss the point; the covers were real thin too. I've been looking for Bigsby pickups for about 18 years now, only ever found one and it was over a thousand dollars, ouch. Bigsby was a maker of wood model parts to be used for sand casting molds for aluminum casting. He was motorcycle guy and I guess he worked where they made engine covers etc. I've never been able to find any 40 gauge PE wire, just occasional 38 gauge PE as used in the Charlie Christian pickups. The old wire is very hard to find and getting harder these days. Its great you restored that guitar, but keep looking for an original pickup for the bridge to finish it off. Nice score.
I don’t know about bigsby being first-Slingerland marketed a solid body electric guitar (the songster- not a lap guitar) in the mid 1930s. At least 10 years before bigsby
With so much of the original destroyed in specific key locations, how much of the original is still there? Destroyed headstock, new neck and headstock? Maybe the inlay was saved? Top was destroyed with chisels and holes drilled in it. New top? Side with chunk out of it. New side? Different pickups. Maybe some of the hardware was reusable? Still a great piece of history though. I always wrongly assumed that Leo built the first solid body electric.
Same neck, headstock, and finish. Everything was able to be fixed the only really "new" thing on it is the piece to fix the hole and one reproduction pickup.
Les Paul and Leo Fender both built prototype solid body electric guitars prior to the Bigsby, but Bigsby was the first to create one as a viable commercial product, making the original at Merle Travis' request. Fender had a solid body shop guitar he'd built that was rented out to musicians who were in town, and Les Paul had "The Log". The Bigsby proved the concept and spurred Fender to finally build his own version.
Merle Travis suggested that headstock design to Paul Bigsby when he built a solidbody for Travis. Leo Fender saw that guitar before the Broadcaster came out.
If ya go way back in history, that headstock design originated with C.F.Martin back in the 1800's and C.F. got that design from a European luther… It's all out there for anyone to research. "What goes around, comes around". Love the discussions about anything GUITAR. Loved Deke's books as well !!
@@taylordiclemente5163 If you ever see the wonderful film 'Black Cat, WHite Cat' a scene shows Yugoslav gypsy musicians playing in a hospital. The two guitarists are playing guitars that have the typical Stauffer headstock and might well be original Stauffers.
I may be wrong, but I've always heard the man's name as Thumbs CarLEEL, is how people pronounced it to me... spelled Carlyle, but pronounced that way with a long E....
this guitar like most bigsby guitars are not solid bodies there hollow or semi-hollow just look at the piece of the body wood that is missing....you can clearly see the guitar is mostly hollow just like the Meryl Travis one is....Leo Fenders guitars were/are true solid bodies.........
a fascinating account of a historic guitar. Recently, Fender issued a cease and desist to an independent guitar maker over a headstock shape similar to Fender's. It is highly unlikely that Paul Bigsby ever issued one to Fender. Then again Staufer was gone for over a century and so couldn't have issued a cease and desist to Bigsby. It's a shame Fender is so mean spirited.when it is clear that their headstock design wasn't original.
He made everting himself, totally handmade, even the pickups. He made only 29 Bigsby Standards like this one. And then steel guitars and not least the Bigsby vibrato system. All made by him alone. He was a genious.
It's the reason why Leo quickly outproduced him. Leo had already had the experience of mass producing amplifiers and lap steel guitars and he put it to good use immediately after coming up with the first prototypes of the Broadcaster which he had made after having studied closely Bigsby's guitars which he would borrow. After deciding what worked and what didn't in Bigsby's guitars Leo finished the Broadcaster design more suited for mass production.
Other thing is while Paul had musicians contact him in order to commission a guitar which he then would be making for a very long time as every his guitar was a custom instrument specifically made for that person, Leo would be regularly going to jazz and country gigs in LA at first to service his own amps as a side hustle or just to figure design flaws, and then he would start bringing his Broadcaster prototypes and offer the performing acts to use them. That way he wound up getting way more pre-orders from gigging musicians than Paul and at least in one case a guitarist who had already commissioned Paul to build him a guitar refused to buy the finished instrument because he had bought one of Leo's guitars.
Sincerest thanks to Paul Bigsby for his amazing innovations, and the scant few, but beautiful instruments he produced.
The violin taipiece was suggested by Merle Travis when he sketched out his guitar design for Paul Bigsby, according to an article about Paul written by Merle Travis in Guitar World magazine-I believe iin the first issue in 1980, with Johnny Winter on the cover.
Merci beaucoup for the backstory. I have to say I'm most impressed with the guitar wranglers. Guitars are restless and like to be roam, to see that collection so docile was testament to good training.
Great job of recovering a true piece of history!
It's always good to see old guitars working again. Love the story.
Way to go Deke - good job that man! Thanks for keeping this old flame alive, the old Gibbys and Fenders are really cool but these are the dinosaurs from which all others descend. Makes me proud to be a guitar geek!!
It was a real pleasure to work on this video with the folks at *****! Thanks for inviting me!
Great story! Geez, 20 something guitars, no wonder they're never seen and rarely talked about. Cool sound, too!
Great story, history in your hands there Deke! I have a picture of me holding Bigsby #2 with RC Allen who owned that guitar. He passed away about 5 years ago and not sure what happened to that guitar. We thank you for restoring Bigsby #3.
From Skip in New Orleans:
"A pair of Bigsby pickups was given to me at the 1990 New York guitar show by Mr. Gordon Dow. I was told they were removed from a D'Angelico instrument in New York City. One pickup was installed in the sound hole of a Grammer acoustic guitar by Billy Penn at Outlaw Guitars. That guitar was eventually sold to Mr. Dan Courtney at Chelsea Guitars. The other pickup which was non-functioning at the time was given to Mr. Bob Guida for use in a Gibson ES 175. Bob remains forever in my prayers here in my city below sea level. God bless you Mr. Steve and Happy Trails Mr. Deke. As always, Be Well."
Chet Atkins' John D'Angelico Excel guitar had one Bigsby pickup and one Gibson P90 he installed himself. It was originally all acoustic.
I had an original bigsby vibrato on a cheap 60’s guitar (maybe a kay) Got it at a thrift store in the late 80’s.
Brilliant work Deke. Fascinating. Mark in Granada Spain
Deke is awesome for keeping these priceless instruments alive and available for us to see.
Wow! That guitar couldn't be restored in any better condition than what it is now. It must have cost a fortune! A real treasure.
Very interesting! I wasn't aware of the history of solid body guitars pre Fender. I'm glad the history of these guitars is being preserved and the information is being passed on.
So badass, thank you saving and restoring it
I'm from Hawai'i, moved to Bixby Ok twelve years ago. The locals pronounce Bixby as Bigsby, so when I saw the title Bigsby Guitar I thought, wOw! a guitar made in Bixby long time ago, but no, it's not. Hahaha. That's a great guitar, looks like a cross between a Strat and a Les Paul. Thanks for this awesome post.
Wow! Thanks Deke, amazing story... Keepin' the flame alive :) Buy the book folks it's a super read.
I remember that guitar, Butterball Paige is my uncle.
To bad your uncle didn't pass it on down to you, They are around $275,000.
Butterball sure could cook, on that thing!
That's just the way Butterball spelled it. The cemetery he is buried in is full of people with the last name of Page. He's the only one spelled Paige.
Not uncommon
A legend who contributed to make Earnest Tubb a legend.
Wow! ...what an incredible journey for that guitar.
I'm just amazed you were able to restore it. Amazing.
Cool guitar Deke
Super rare n nice music n story,Exellent
One of the best guitar channels on TH-cam! Love all your Videos! The Old stuff same as the new stuff!
What an amazing story and restoration! Thanks for sharing.
Nice video
Thanks Deke for all the great information about this guitar. Bigsby was a genius.
What a superb work/ restoration job by Retrofret! Wow.. And, Deke, thank you for the very interesting history of this beautyfull Bigsby guitar. These guitars must be very rare. At first, years ago, I saw the Grady Martin doubleneck Bigsby on youtube and always wondered what kind of guitar this would be. But now I know :) Think I never can effort one! ;) but I enjoy my '59 Harmony Rocket and '62 Kay Speeddemon. Cheers, Reem Groot
I think we can all agree that Merle Travis was one of the most influential musicians of the previous century. Thanks Paul bigsby for working with Merle and making history. *Merle also designed the 6 in line headstock*
Such a great story! Cool looking guitar as well.
Thank you so much Deke great shoot .love the guitar cannot wait til june to meet ya Gordy Schwarz
So appreciate this unique guitar history. Thanks for posting!
Extremely well done, thoroughly enjoyed this!
Great restoration job! Marvellous presentation of factual history, and good playing. I notice you found a way to play it on the other knee. 🙂🎸👏👏
Thank you for saving and restoring the important piece of history. Great work.
Just finished The Stat in the Attic. And just stumbled onto this video. An excellent bookend to an excellent story.
That is so cool. Sounds great too. Thanks Deke.
a stunningly successful restoration, and a beautifully clear explanation of it all as well, thank you for preserving a guitar with so much significance!
great looking guitar , and what an amazing sound
Great antediluvian tone. Really nice to hear how they did it in the early days.
So This is the End of the Line of Old School Guitars !!!!!!....i got a book or 2 on guitars back in 1990 and it has history of these guitars...So this guy in the video is searching for rare guitars and he comes up with the Electric Holy Grail Guitar... omfg im gonna pass out....
Great history and the guitar looks and sounds amazing!
Fantastic!!
wonderful video, enjoyed it very much , a great piece of musical history for sure, nice work and thanks for putting this together gents!
How is the first solid body ever made still the most beautiful? Thanx Deke
Love this!
a fascinating story !
So cool
Cool story and a fantastic job on the guitar. They, Fender, reissued these guitars a few years ago as I can remember that their website had Fender, Gretch, and a few versions of these. I looked a while back and couldn't find them. I guess these guitars are once again out of production. Cool guitars though! Thanks for the video and story.
What a great opportunity to study and document the construction of this guitar with that rim piece busted out. The photo of P. Bigsby holding that guitar was taken by Fender's Forrest White. C'mon Dickerson...what about the E7 in bar 12 of that closing piece...you missed it every time around!
wow sweet story
I saw Deke play on tour with Rev. Horton. Great show!
thks for the great video , interesting gtr and story : ) jcm
I was born in 1949... I like that guitar... 😉
Really interesting - I guess Leo Fender was around at the time, with his pencil and notebook poised for action... !!
Nicer saw one of these Bigsby guitar on a music shop on the wall in Australia in the mid 1990’s. It needed restauration. I ask the owner if he wanted to sell it. He wanted to restaure it for himself.
The LaBaye 2x4 also had a stupidly placed selector switch. In fact, Eastwood's reissue has it moved up to the top of the body per the request of Devo's Bob Mothersbaugh.
R. I. P.
The Texas Troubadour,
ERNEST 🇨🇱 TUBB
Tommy
"Butterball"
Paige 🎸
Billy Byrd🎸
So...In reality, Paul Bigsby first came up with that Headstock design; not Leo Fender?
Nice story- great job, and wonderful restoration- nice sound Now I wish I hadn't thrown out that double necked guitar, it was broken anyway- just kidding KC
+TheVampire989 Thanks KC... my heart stopped for a moment thinking of a double neck in the dumpster!!!
Do you still have the early production Bigsby?
Now i feel like converting my guitar into a Bigsby
Wow!
The lost two neck bigsby guitar is on a march 31st 2009 video on TH-cam. Titled Bigsby guitar Grandpa's Bigsby..😮
It is the lost bigsby..For Sure..!!!
I think those guys are joking around I'm pretty sure that was a repro guitar made by a luthier today. The birdseyes in the maple on the two guitars also dont match up.
Body looks like a LP. Was that Les Paul's shape or Paul Bigsby?
Country guitar legend Grady Martin played a Bigsby double neck guitar in the 50's on the Ozark Jubilee Television show hosted by Red Foley. Why would you said there was only one Bigsby double neck when there were clearly at least two built?
Carvin Guitars in the late 1950's started making Double Necks, Larry Collins had a Carvin (Keisel) doulbe neck.
Unfortunately the "replica" pickup isn't going to sound like an original. Bigsby used 40 gauge plain enamel wire. No one makes plain enamel 40 wire anymore, plus the old wire is way different than any modern magnet wire. I've documented the heck out of this and had Elektrisola analyzed a good pile of 16+ vintage plain enamel magnet wire off P90's, PAF's, and some Fender pickups as well, covering a range of 40 years time span. We did this in about 2006-7. They did numerous kinds of tests then educated me on what they were and what the results meant compared to modern wire. But the kicker is that since 2007 when we did that, I've obtained a fair pile of vintage 40's-50's, and earlier and later PE wire, so I know what the old wire sounds like in person, extremely well. My theories at the time all proved to be true once I wound with old wire and played it. The other failure will be the pole pieces. In the early 40-50's common hardware fasteners were made of very low carbon. In our time the carbon content is much higher, gives a very different sound. You can't buy those alloy fasteners now unless you have them custom made, and some of those alloys were almost pure iron, which is not possible to have made anymore. There IS alnico currently being made now that sounds like vintage magnets do, so thats not a big issue. There have been some companies I've seen a few years ago making "Bigsby" pickups, but inside all they are is P90's and completely miss the point; the covers were real thin too. I've been looking for Bigsby pickups for about 18 years now, only ever found one and it was over a thousand dollars, ouch. Bigsby was a maker of wood model parts to be used for sand casting molds for aluminum casting. He was motorcycle guy and I guess he worked where they made engine covers etc. I've never been able to find any 40 gauge PE wire, just occasional 38 gauge PE as used in the Charlie Christian pickups. The old wire is very hard to find and getting harder these days. Its great you restored that guitar, but keep looking for an original pickup for the bridge to finish it off. Nice score.
Back in the 1960's a hoard of Texans & Okies from UA 798 layed out the Alaskan Pipeline. Maybe someone had Butterballs old guitar.
Merl asked Paul to make a guitar like a violin that is why the tail piece looks the way it does.And Paul was a pattern maker by trade.
I don’t know about bigsby being first-Slingerland marketed a solid body electric guitar (the songster- not a lap guitar) in the mid 1930s. At least 10 years before bigsby
Songster 401, specifically.
about switch placement..genius...no guitar players were caught sitting- down way back then save those lapsteels!
With so much of the original destroyed in specific key locations, how much of the original is still there? Destroyed headstock, new neck and headstock? Maybe the inlay was saved? Top was destroyed with chisels and holes drilled in it. New top? Side with chunk out of it. New side? Different pickups. Maybe some of the hardware was reusable? Still a great piece of history though. I always wrongly assumed that Leo built the first solid body electric.
Same neck, headstock, and finish. Everything was able to be fixed the only really "new" thing on it is the piece to fix the hole and one reproduction pickup.
Les Paul and Leo Fender both built prototype solid body electric guitars prior to the Bigsby, but Bigsby was the first to create one as a viable commercial product, making the original at Merle Travis' request. Fender had a solid body shop guitar he'd built that was rented out to musicians who were in town, and Les Paul had "The Log". The Bigsby proved the concept and spurred Fender to finally build his own version.
yo quiero esooooooooooooo guitarra mandolinnnnn
Hmmm, that body shape looks so familiar, hmmm, that headstock shape looks so familiar.....
the switch was possibly an after thought
Did you know that even though Butterbean had a mean left hook, he played the guitar right handed?? The more you knee-yo!!!! 🌈
Fender must have copied that headstock style
Merle Travis suggested that headstock design to Paul Bigsby when he built a solidbody for Travis. Leo Fender saw that guitar before the Broadcaster came out.
If ya go way back in history, that headstock design originated with C.F.Martin back in the 1800's and C.F. got that design from a European luther… It's all out there for anyone to research. "What goes around, comes around". Love the discussions about anything GUITAR. Loved Deke's books as well !!
The scroll headstock comes from JG Stauffer of Vienna.
@@taylordiclemente5163 If you ever see the wonderful film 'Black Cat, WHite Cat' a scene shows Yugoslav gypsy musicians playing in a hospital. The two guitarists are playing guitars that have the typical Stauffer headstock and might well be original Stauffers.
@@oldsyphilitic I would like to see that. I'll look it up. Thank you!
great video--thanks for sharing
I may be wrong, but I've always heard the man's name as Thumbs CarLEEL, is how people pronounced it to me... spelled Carlyle, but pronounced that way with a long E....
It doesn’t have a Bigsby. Fender sues a lot of folks over the headstock design they lifted from PB.
Formally owned by Thumbs Carsile, Kelso Herston and others.
I coulda had keiths bygsby for 30k. Blew it
This guitar is not solid body guitar??This guitar looks hollow body guitar....am I wrong about it....?
Its a solid body with chambers... but call it what you want, its a super cool guitar!
this guitar like most bigsby guitars are not solid bodies there hollow or semi-hollow just look at the piece of the body wood that is missing....you can clearly see the guitar is mostly hollow just like the Meryl Travis one is....Leo Fenders guitars were/are true solid bodies.........
Hmmm! Gibson copied authentic me thinks! Looks like a Les Paul with a Fender CBS era headstock!
Bigsby should be suing Gibson over the body design and Fender over the headstock. What is it that Gibson says?...."Play authentic..."
a fascinating account of a historic guitar. Recently, Fender issued a cease and desist to an independent guitar maker over a headstock shape similar to Fender's. It is highly unlikely that Paul Bigsby ever issued one to Fender. Then again Staufer was gone for over a century and so couldn't have issued a cease and desist to Bigsby. It's a shame Fender is so mean spirited.when it is clear that their headstock design wasn't original.
Looks like Gibson copied a guitar, looks like Fender copied a headstock...
Pretty cool story about the geetar